Issues
by RattusLabRat
Summary: Fifth in the series. Lydia is ill...ahem..cue nurse Beetlejuice.


**Issues**

**Disclaimer:** ..._i'm poor, okay? Poor i tell ya!_

**A/N:** _Ooooh, we are nearing the end of this series...(sobs) Don't worry, it'll all be happy endings...or will it? Bwahahaha! Who knows? Right, i want to point something out here, there's a comment made in this story..about disease and America, i plead to all who reads this..i have nothing against America! I just thought it'd just be along the lines of Beej to think like that...please no flames or letters of hatred or anything like that. I LIKE AMERICANS!...i really do. I thought i'd just point it out, i don't want to make it an issue or anything...pfft. Anyways, on with the story..! Oh, i almost forgot, thank you to all who have followed this so far and reviewed, you guys make my day._

"Beej, i to-ho-ho hold oo, achoo! I'm fine!"

"Lyds, you got a fever of a hundred and one, babe...you ain't _fine_."

Lydia lay in her bed surrounded by duvets and comforters, discarded tissues lay all around her room. Several bottles of medine lined her bedside table and her makeshift desk had at least 8 bottles of vitamins on it. A water bottle had been thrown to the foot of her bed and a few rough sketches lay crumped to the left of Lydia. Beetlejuice sat at the edge of her bed, watching over her like he had the past few days.

An ill Lydia was not fine.

When she got sick everybody knew about it, her constant mood swings, coughing and snorting was enough to warn anyone around her that she wasn't to be bothered for at least a week. Beetlejuice obviously wasn't taking the hint. If he could catch her cold, she was sure she would have tried to pass it on by now. If it wasn't for him and his liking of fast food, Lydia knew she wouldn't be in this situation. Long strolls in the rain was NOT good for the soul, next time...that's if there was a next time, she would flatly refuse Beetlejuice chinese food.

The scruffy ghost watched her for several minutes and heaved a long tired and frustrated sigh. God, the woman could be so annoying at times. He'd tried to do his best, being a full time nurse wasn't in his job description. He'd given her pills, god know's what kind, but Lydia was keeping him right. There was those vita..vita whats? Those things that were good for her, and cough medicine. That rattling of her chest had been driving him crazy for the past day and a half!

Beetlejuice shook his head, no wonder breathers lived as long as they did nowadays with all this medicinal crap. Sometime's he wished that a deadly disease would again strike the heart of America, giving Juno and those chumps something to do, he knew how she detested the paperwork.

A chuckle was hidden beneath a cough as Beetlejuice noticed Lydia's deathly glare. Uh, oh. She wasn't happy. What was it with sick chicks? Fight a cold, the next thing you know they think they're He-woman. Bah. Raising an eyebrow, he shrugged as if in question as to what he should be doing right now.

"Wha?"

"An you get ee a issue."

Beetlejuice stared at Lydia, his mouth opening slowly as if in a trance as to this new language she was speaking.

"You want an..issue?"

"ISSUE!"

"Issue?"

"ISS-UE!" Lydia pointed to the box that lay a meter away from her bed, it had been the closest thing to throw in a fit of rage as to her weakened state.

Beetlejuice followed Lydia's finger and jumped in triumph. "Ah! You want a tissue! Why didn't ya say so in the first place, babes?"

Lydia's glare was all he got in return. Handing her the box of kleenex, Lydia snatched it from his grip and began terrorising the box with abandon, white bits of tissue flying here, there and everywhere. A loud blowing noise ensued as Lydia used the remainder of tissues from the half used box. Several lay around her room looking almost identical to the one in her hand. Shredded, crumpled and tissueless.

"Lyds..."

"What?"

"Uh..." Beetlejuice looked helpless. "Maybe you should calm down on those tissues, you've gotten through a truck load already."

"Do oo 'ave a constant munny ose?"

Beetlejuice shook his head.

"Ittent fink so."

Lydia sneezed and nearly suffocated herself with a tissue, Beetlejuice watched on and lit up a cigarette. Damn it. Looking after sick women was stressful. He didn't care if she protested about the cig, he needed one. Tough shit.

He was worried. If he still had a beating heart, he knew every time she coughed or winced in pain, his heart would skip a beat. He hated seeing her in pain, be it a cut finger or a broken limb and this cold wasn't doing much for their relationship. They had mended what could be mended, promises had been made and both parties had checked to see if the other was crossing their fingers. No such luck this time. They had become closer, that had been new. Lydia now leaned into his personal space more than Beetlejuice used to lean into hers. He wasn't complaining or anything.

There had been a couple of times he knew that if he hadn't moved, he would have kissed her there and then. Long, sweet and full of promise. He didn't need to cause more trouble just as they had sorted the other shit out respectively. He had forced it upon himself that kissing was a no no...unless Lydia was the one starting it.

Those thoughts weren't for times like these, she was ill. He was trying to help her get better.

"You ah, want me to make you some soup or somethin'?"

Lydia looked blissfully shocked. "Oo an make ooop?

Scuffing a withered boot on Lydia's floorboards, Beetlejuice shrugged and shook his head. "Well, no. Thought i'd get you one of those tinned soups you're slurpin' all the time."

Lydia sighed and closed her eyes. All she wanted to do was medicate herself to a comotose state and sleep through this bloody cold. She hated being sick, nothing got done. She'd already taken two days off college and important sketches had to be handed in three days from now. Stupid, stupid rain!

As if by luck, Lydia slowly fell asleep.

**XxXxXxX**

Beetlejuice sat on the edge of her bed, he'd been there for at least five hours, he liked to watch over her at times like these. She really was pretty when she slept. Looking down he stared at the golden locket which lay in the palm of his hand. It had been his mothers.

Like he, she had lived through the black plague, once the worst was over she had fallen terribly ill. She probably had what Lydia had, a simple cold. Medicine back then was scarce, and they knew fuck all about cures and whatever it was doctors done nowadays. She'd been in bed almost a week before she'd died. He had a brother and a father that had died due to the plague so it had been up to Beetlejuice to sort everything out. She didn't even get a proper burial. Not long after that, death claimed him.

Beetlejuice shook his head. Life was shitty, at best. The locket in his hand the only thing that tied him to his life before...whatever it was that he could call this. Heaven. Hell? Naw...just a plain shit hole. He was going to give it to Lydia, he didn't know when. He wanted to tell her everything, about his life...his death. He didn't want to keep anything back, being with her and talking to her just felt...right.

Lydia stirred in her sleep and slowly opened her eyes, with a small poof the locket was gone and Beetlejuice was bending over Lydia checking her temperature.

"How you feelin' babe? You don't seem to be hot anymore...those meds must have kicked in."

Lydia sat up and yawned. "Alright fanks, Beej."

"Good ta know, kiddo."

Lydia looked into the jade eyes of her friend and found herself lost in his swirling pools. She was ill, yet thinking of Beetlejuice in a manner which should have scared her. Yet it didn't.

"Fank oo."

Beetlejuice frowned. "For what, Lyds?"

Lydia moved closer to Beetlejuice and grasped his thigh. Quickly looking down, his green eyes fixed on her small fragile hand clinging onto his thigh for strength.

"For being a friend...for being here."

"Got nothin'...uh better to ah...do."

Sliding over, Lydia stretched as far as she could in her still weakened state, lifitng her hand to his cheek, she caressed his pearly white skin for a moment with the back of her thumb and reached forward. Placing her warm wet lips on his cool cheek, she kissed him and pulled back slowly.

Beetlejuice stared at her for a moment, and began to smile. Shifting uncomfortably, the locket he had had in his hands before appeared and he looked down at it, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Lyds...i wanna tell you a couple of things..."


End file.
